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Author Topic: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...  (Read 12421 times)

gorinw13

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Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« on: May 18, 2008, 03:44 AM »
I am trying to install the website-watcher at work --- but it requires administrator privileges......

Is  there any way to bypass this?... Any techniques?....
« Last Edit: May 18, 2008, 03:46 AM by gorinw13 »

mediaguycouk

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2008, 05:54 AM »
1) Ask IT to do it
2) Try installing it to your documents and settings / username / application data folder
Learning C# - Graham Robinson

gorinw13

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2008, 06:00 AM »
2) Try installing it to your documents and settings / username / application data folder
-mediaguycouk (May 18, 2008, 05:54 AM)

It does not work... as soon as I click on setup, It says you need admin rights and can not install...... and after clicking ok, it closes... so I do not come to the stage where it asks directory etc....

Thank you anyway for the reply.....

TucknDar

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2008, 06:47 AM »
did you look in the Website-Watcher forums? Developer Martin Aignesberger is usually quick to respond there.

gorinw13

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #4 on: May 18, 2008, 06:50 AM »

he told there is no way to install if I am not the Admin...... I asked here for alternative techniques to install it as Martin Aisberger would think it would be inappropriate for him to tell....  I thought it would be nice to ask here as people would know some techniques to bypass Windows restriction.....

aignes

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #5 on: May 18, 2008, 06:59 AM »
Yes, the setup needs administrator privileges, but not WebSite-Watcher itself.

That way should work:

1. On a PC where you have administrator privileges, install the portable version of WebSite-Watcher into a separate directory (without running WebSite-Watcher)
2. Delete the file wswcommon.ini from that directory (to remove the portable flag)
3. Copy all files from that setup folder to your company PC

Then it is possible to use WebSite-Watcher without an installation. But you need administrator privileges when executing the wswsetup.exe file, there's no way to bypass that.
- Martin Aignesberger,  author of WebSite-Watcher

gorinw13

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #6 on: May 18, 2008, 07:05 AM »


Thank you Aignes... will try it soon...

Carol Haynes

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #7 on: May 18, 2008, 08:16 AM »
The question no one is asking is WHY does the installer need admin rights?

TucknDar

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #8 on: May 18, 2008, 08:55 AM »
WHY does the installer need admin rights?


 :-[

mouser

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2008, 09:25 AM »
don't all installers need admin rights to create stuff in the Program Files directory? it's just that vista automatically elevates installer programs silently.

unless we are talking about a portable version, which really shouldn't need an installer at all.

aignes

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2008, 10:40 AM »
Main reason is that a non-admin installer caused too much problems and hassles in the past. WebSite-Watcher was often updated from different user accounts into different locations, it was a real pain from support side. Result was that bookmark files were accessed with different versions of WebSite-Watcher what could also cause side effects.

We get the admin question really rarely (a number we can live with), so the admin requirement is currently the way we go and our customers usually don't have a problem with that.
- Martin Aignesberger,  author of WebSite-Watcher

mediaguycouk

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2008, 03:36 AM »
As an IT support person I don't think I've ever turned down a request for software on a PC (except people who want malware filled toolbars and cute screensavers or who want something unlicensed installing on the quiet). So my question is why you are unable to just request for this software to be installed.

The only reasons I can think of are
a) You have broken computers before and have had your rights revoked
b) Your organization wants to know what software is being used and you are trying to keep it hidden
c) You can't be bothered asking
Learning C# - Graham Robinson

gorinw13

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #12 on: May 19, 2008, 03:58 AM »

It is just because there are thousands of people where I work and the IT personnel does not want to deal with everyone so they just ignore such requests... If they start to accept anyones every request it will be unbearable to them... So I do not blame them...... They might not want to install software they do not know unless they know there is a compelling reason that it is necessary to install the software for work purposes.... As you know, not everyone knows what they install and besides the workload IT support installing for them they know there will be more workload later because of crashing computers.... So you either have to know a friend in the IT department or try solutions as I ask....
« Last Edit: May 19, 2008, 04:05 AM by gorinw13 »

J-Mac

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #13 on: May 19, 2008, 02:50 PM »
mediaguycook,

gorwin stated it perfectly.  The engineering companies I have worked with are exactly the same way.  Everyone would like to install their favorite applications, but IT has no way of knowing which will have possible conflicts with company-approved software - that which is needed to perform their job duties - and if they were to install something for an employee and it caused, say, a network problem for 20,00 users or so, they most likely would no longer work there!

Pretty standard business practice.  And a sound one at that.

Jim

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Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...
« Reply #14 on: May 20, 2008, 03:42 AM »
One thing many of you who bypass these restrictions don't understand is that it is also opening the company up to liability every time you install unauthorized software.  I am one of those "techies" that won't install the software and it has nothing to do with the user or the support time/cost involved.  Let's face it, if that were the case, many enterprising support personnel would try to add as much as possible to actually make/keep business friends and at the same time guarantee their jobs.  At work we lost 40% of our staff due to layoffs because the standardization of the desktops made us too efficient.  Business people understand the efficiency and layoffs contribute to a healthier bottom-line, but few if any understand how that is achieved.  Further, if you tell them that they can't have such and such software anymore to achieve that efficiency, many complain.  And the higher that goes, the more loudly they complain.

Getting back to the point, the reason no deskside tech in their right mind will install software is due to the liability in 1) Licensing, 2) Malware, & 3) Productivity, in roughly that order.  I can not begin to tell you the number of times people asked me to install software because of any number of reasons, most of which are NOT legal.  Mostly it was simply they had it installed before and want it again.  While this MAY be okay, in one case in particular, it was not.  This case is with SnagIt and is a fairly indicative example.  They would have a version of SnagIt which was Shareware (version 4 I think, but don't quote me).  Then they would want me to install version 8 because it was the latest version.  However, not only did they not purchase the shareware in violation of the license, but the newer version was not even offered under the same license.  The version they were requesting was not even shareware, and they wanted it without a license or corporate approval.

Other examples include software that is licensed for personal use, but used for business use.  Admittedly, as a tech, I have done that with at least one piece of software, but I specifically got written authorization from the company themselves and kept that proof.  However, most people don't even take that little step.  If I, as the tech, can't verify that it can be on any corporate machine (either through corporate licenses, or written declairation of legal free use for commercial purposes), I won't touch that software on a corporate computer, much less install and allow use of it.  What happens when the software company comes knocking asking for proof of licensing?  Do you think the individuals like yourself are going to say, "Yeah, I authorized it knowing that the company didn't pay for it"?  Not on your life.  When Attachemate came to our company looking for that kind of proof, it cost us dearly.  The end result was nearly a million dollar settlement agreement not including the costs of legal proceedings, negotiations, discovery costs, and lost productivity due to changing of software.  While no $$$ estimate was made, I would be surprised if the overall costs were under $10 Million.  And, of course, that does not include the defamation costs that may have occurred.

While many people can understand the issues with tracking and maintaining hundreds of machines as a reason for standardization, this is only secondary to the more amorphous, but also more hazardous reason for these policies.  And yet it amazes me to see how far people will go out of their way to try and get around them.

Without making this (unintentional) missive too much longer, I only have this to say:  If the software is good and worth while, make a use case for the software proving it's utility in monetary form.  Compare that to the cost of the software.  Break all this down with various prices already gathered (corporate site license, corporate volume license, corporate individual license, etc.) and provide it to your manager, your purchasing group, and your tech group all together.  If it is freeware in any form, make sure you get a letter from the software author or from their website specifically marking it as free for commercial use.  Make the tech group's job of shutting you down as difficult as possible, such that the only justification they can make is to prove it conflicts with other, more important software.  I know it is a slow process, but that is the best way to get software onto your system and it would release you and the "techies" from any liability from use of the software.